


until it clicks

by aimerai



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Idiots in Love, M/M, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:38:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14237478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimerai/pseuds/aimerai
Summary: Matt feels the bond coming in pretty subtly, as he gets used to being in Providence and hockey being his entire life. It feels like something caught on the tip of his tongue, and he lets himself hope that it’s someone he’s already friends with. That’s what fucks him over when the goddamn sext comes in.





	until it clicks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taxingme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taxingme/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Magic of Your Sighs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10881786) by [taxingme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taxingme/pseuds/taxingme). 



Matt feels the bond coming in pretty subtly, as he gets used to being in Providence and hockey being his entire life. It feels like something caught on the tip of his tongue, and he lets himself hope that it’s someone he’s already friends with. That’s what fucks him over when the goddamn sext comes in, because he’s been feeling it all day, someone else reaching out and tugging a little, tentative. Matt always tugs back, to say _I’m here, I’m with you_ , but it puts him on edge and makes it hard to fall asleep, when it feels like he’s so close to the bond finally snapping in place. He wants to know who the universe thinks he’s meant for.

His phone buzzes, and it’s Charlie, who Matt texts more than he feels comfortable admitting to anyone. Who Matt likes more than he feels comfortable admitting to anyone. _u up?_

Well, Matt’s not supposed to be up, but he’s too wired to fall asleep easily, so texting Charlie isn’t really making anything worse. Or at least, that’s how Matt’s rationalising it, fingers flying across the keyboard almost before his mind has caught up. _yeah._

It takes so long for Charlie to reply that Matt almost thinks he isn’t going to, had texted Matt on a dumb whim, and thinks about legitimately trying to go to bed, except then he feels another tug in the part of his brain that’s currently just nebulous bond things. It’s the strongest it’s been all day and takes Matt from ready to attempt to sleep to wide awake in a split second. Charlie’s reply comes in almost right afterwards, and Matt is rattled enough that it takes him a moment to process what he’s seeing.

It’s a dick pic. It’s Charlie’s dick. Matt’s just been sent a dick pic of Charlie’s dick. How do people normally respond to people they maybe like too much sending them dick pics out of nowhere? Matt is so busy freaking out, some combination of Charlie just sending a fucking dick pic out of nowhere and the constant low-grade buzz of a bond that’s starting to become tangible, that it takes him a bit to actually process the dick pic. Like, obviously Charlie hasn’t paid attention to lighting or angles or anything, but he has a nice dick, and Matt’s kinda turned on, arousal zipping through his veins. He also feels kinda guilty, like he’s cheating on his bondmate-to-be, even though he doesn’t even know who they are.

 _babe u there,_ and now Matt’s turning red. Because he likes Charlie, he does, but he’s close to a fully-fledged soulbond, and there’s no way those two are related; Matt is not that lucky. Matt has been trying, even if badly, to get over Charlie, because he’ll have a bondmate soon, someone who’s going to share Matt’s mind and his life. He shouldn’t text back, but it’s Charlie, and Matt’s been shit at getting over him anyway.

 _Thinking about you,_ Matt texts back. He can’t tell whether his throat is dry because of nerves or because he’s so, so into this, and expecting something to fall apart any moment. He bites down on a slightly hysterical giggle, thinking of what would happen if his bond snapped into place now, and pushes down his sweats and underwear, stroking himself and looking at Charlie’s photo again. Wonders what it would be like to get his hands on Charlie’s dick, and what Charlie’s hands on him would feel like, and thinks he can almost feel it, Charlie’s large hands curled around his dick, going just slow enough to be maddening.

_bout suckin my dick?_

Matt thinks of a swear word or four and imagines being on his knees, Charlie’s dick in his mouth, and _Fuck yeah_ he sends, barely needing to think about it. He’s never, but _Want that so bad_ , he sends, and can almost taste Charlie’s dick.

 _yeah u look so hot doing it,_ Charlie sends, and that’s it, that’s all it takes for Matt to come all over himself, knowing that Charlie is getting himself off imagining Matt sucking his dick. He breathes hard into the dark quiet of his room for a couple of minutes, wonders if Charlie came too, but doesn’t check his phone again until he’s wiped the come off of his stomach with tissues from his nightstand.

The first message he sees is another photo, of Charlie’s abs covered in his own come, and it’s still a picture taken in shitty lighting, from a shitty angle, but it’s Charlie who just got off thinking about Matt blowing him, and that’s hot. Before that, Charlie’s texted _gonna cum_ , which Matt gathered, considering the photo below. Kinda pointless, Charlie. It’s the message above it that ruins Matt’s afterglow, and makes Matt feel like his face is going to melt off, even as he feels like he was just plunged in ice cold water. _wanna cum on your face again._

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he knows this prank; they’ve done it every year, and if it weren’t for Matt’s dumb, inconvenient feelings, and his fucking bond settling, he’d have known that Charlie wouldn’t have fucking sexted him out of the blue, but no, Matt is an idiot who couldn’t use rational thought. God, this is up there for ‘worst ways to reveal a crush’ ever, and if it were up to Matt, he’d just ignore it, but it’ll be so much worse if Charlie’s the one to confront Matt about it. At least this way Matt can get it over with, be like ‘sorry your teammates are dicks who switched around your contacts to wait for you to do something embarrassing.’ And it would have worked, too, because sexting your old captain’s plenty embarrassing, except Matt had sexted back.

Charlie answers with a sleepy hello when it’s almost gone to voicemail, right about when Matt was hoping Charlie had fallen asleep and he could just leave a message.

“We need to talk,” Matt says anxiously, heart kicking into a whole new overdrive.

“It’s like, three in the morning, can’t this wait till tomorrow, man?” Charlie asks, voice rough with sleep. It’s obvious Charlie’s still not quite awake, but Matt’s already called him, he has to go through with it.

Matt stutters over his words at first, but then it bursts out. “The guys fucked with your phone. I don’t know who you thought you were sexting, but it wasn’t—it was me,” he finishes lamely.

Charlie lets out a noise that Matt can’t even begin to interpret, his anxiety ramping up more, heartbeat thudding in his ears. “I sent a dick pic, dude. How did you think that was for you?”

Matt’s so embarrassed he doesn’t know how he doesn’t hang up on Charlie. He’s already resisting the urge to strangle himself with a pillow. “I mean, I wanted you to feel how I do.”

Charlie’s quiet for a long moment, but it doesn’t seem like an upset or horrified silence or anything. More like he’s thinking, and Matt feels less everything. Feels like things might turn out okay. Or like, if not okay, at least not soul-crushingly awful.

“Dude, it’s too early for this. Just—it’s no big deal, we can talk about it tomorrow,” and that’s it, Charlie hangs up on Matt without dealing with any of it. Matt wants to hate him for it.

Matt flings the hand with his phone in it to the side a little too hard, satisfied by the sound of it hitting the mattress. That’s not an answer. Sure, Charlie wasn’t outright disgusted, but he was half-asleep that entire fucking phone call, and Matt is still stressed by the lack of resolution. Maybe, once Charlie thinks about it awake, he’s going to be awful about it. Matt figures he’s going to lie awake and worry, but despite himself, falls asleep sooner than he’d have thought possible. Everything’s going to be fucked one way or another, but hopefully it’s not too bad.

Charlie calls while Matt’s eating breakfast and failing miserably to pretend that he’s not stressed about how Charlie’s going to react now that it’s really, truly the next day. He lets it ring and redirect Charlie to voicemail, while taking deep breaths. He’s not ready, but delaying it any longer is just going to make it that much worse. His food tastes like ashes in his mouth, but he finishes anyway—gotta keep his weight up. He dials Charlie as he heads back to his room, locking his door behind him and flopping onto his bed, prepared for the worst.

“Took your time,” Charlie says, but he doesn’t really sound grumpy or upset. It almost sounds like a chirp, except that it lands just slightly wrong, a note of uncertainty in Charlie’s voice. There’s a bit of a pause, where Matt tries to think of what to say, but Charlie starts talking again, finally addressing that the two of them had sexted, that Matt had gotten off to him. "So, last night. It's cool, I thought about it and like I said, it's no big deal."

"No big deal," Matt echoes, because it's a relief that Charlie’s going to let it slide, but it doesn't really answer anything, what does that even mean? He finds himself asking, "What the fuck do you mean, no big deal?"

"It's cool, like, I never thought about you like that before, but I'm cool with it," Charlie says, like it's simple, and easy, and that's all.

"So, like, what now?" Matt asks, confused. "Like, I have a soulbond coming in, is this just going to be something you're going to like, look back on and laugh about?"

"Dude, no," Charlie says, some combination of horrified and offended. "I'm not that much of a dick."

"So what are we doing?" Matt asks, because he doesn't know what's going on, he's just following Charlie's lead. He has no experience at all with these kinds of things, but this is better than what he’d hoped for.

Charlie makes a considering sound. "I mean, I've never thought about you like that, but it could be fun. Something to do while you wait for the bond, and if it's weird, we can stop or whatever. But like, I honestly don't think it's going to be that weird, you know?"

Well, Matt doesn't know, but Charlie's suggesting something that feels reasonable, and Matt hasn't felt anything from his incoming soulbond since last night, anyway, so he's probably not shooting himself in the foot too badly with how much he wants to keep this up with Charlie, even if it were an accident the first time. Even if it’s just, like, long-distance fuckbuddies until Matt’s soulbond comes in or Charlie gets bored or whatever. Matt wants however much of Charlie he can get; so much for getting over Charlie. "So you want to keep going?"

"I mean, what I really want right now is for you to take your pants off and get your dick out," Charlie says, in a low, confident tone.

Matt chokes on his own breath and starts coughing, unable to get a proper breath. Way to go zero to one hundred, warn a guy, Charlie, jesus.

“Shit, dude, drink water,” Charlie says, immediately. By the time Matt’s stopped coughing his throat feels a little raw.

“Did you not want to?” Charlie asks, tentatively.

“You just surprised me,” Matt says, his voice coming out a little bit wrecked.

Matt can almost feel Charlie’s grin. “You should still strip for me, though.”

It becomes a thing, where Charlie calls or texts him when he wants to. Matt never initiates anything, but it doesn’t seem to matter—Charlie usually manages to message him before Matt decides to go for broke and text first for once. It’s all new to Matt, and he feels better following Charlie’s lead, sending photos when Charlie asks, saying the things Charlie asks to hear. Charlie still always starts off with _u up_ and Matt’s still into Charlie, bad enough that he wants Charlie to be his boyfriend, his first, his everything. On more hopeful days, he dreams about Charlie being his bondmate, who’s faded into obscurity in Matt’s mind, maybe an occasional tug here or there that never manages to make Matt feel guilty about what he’s doing for longer than a passing second.

Matt relies on Charlie during his first pro season probably too much. Like yeah, there’s the sexting thing, but Charlie’s a good friend, and he seems to just know when Matt needs cheering up, or when Matt needs to be distracted from hockey and the bumps and bruises and pressure of his first pro season. Charlie’s good at getting Matt out of his own head and making him feel like he’s the only one with all of Matt’s attention, and Charlie’s just easy, to keep up with. Watching him play when Matt can, and keeping up with scores otherwise, isn’t a big deal, but Charlie still seems pleased that Matt does.

Matt’s so happy and proud at WJC that it feels like Charlie has to be able to feel it, just through the line of emojis that Matt sends him. Matt may have won money, but he’s so proud for Charlie, that he gets to have this win. Charlie sends back a keysmash and a kissy face that make Matt smile at his phone, overwhelmingly fond and happy, and for a moment, it feels echoed, like someone else is feeling his own emotions and sending them back to him. Matt freezes a little; he hasn’t thought about his bondmate in a while, even though his bond is still settling, still active in a corner of his brain. He turns off his phone out of guilt, and when he turns it on again the next day, has a bunch of increasingly incomprehensible messages from Charlie, littered with a bunch of hearts.

Something changes then. Charlie keeps talking to him—starts talking to him more, if anything. Sometimes he’s asking for advice or Matt’s opinion, and other times he’s calling just to talk, and Matt knows that he’s got the world’s dumbest smile on when Charlie calls just to talk, but he can’t help it; it’s Charlie. Even as Charlie’s schedule gets busier, between hockey and school, it still feels like Matt talks to him just as much, if not more, and it makes Matt hopeful, even though he knows it’s probably just Charlie being Charlie.

Matt sends out the necessary consolation texts after the Terriers’ season is over, doesn’t really expect to get any back, because it sucks to be there, and nothing really makes it better. He’s surprised when Charlie texts him, _sucks :(_ , but it still makes Matt smile anyway, because it’s Charlie. He sends back a kissy face emoji because he doesn’t quite know how to console Charlie, because losing always sucks. Nothing really makes it better until you get to wallow a bit. Charlie sends back a few hearts, and Matt’s heart flutters, traitorously. He wants to call Charlie, wants to hear his voice, but Charlie probably wants time to be sad with the team, and Matt is just feeling too many things that it’s really not the time to talk about now.

They don’t talk for a few days after that, and it shouldn’t be weird but it is. Matt got used to hearing from Charlie all the time, but he doesn’t have the time to worry about it when they’re so close to clinching. Matt’s exhausted, and it’s really just hockey on his mind, but it’s still weird to get complete radio silence from Charlie. Matt’s not panicking, not really, except it feels too weird, when he’d gotten used to hearing from Charlie.

And then Charlie’s signed and he’s coming to Providence and there’s nothing Matt can do; the next time he’s going to interact with Charlie is going to be in person, for the first time in a while.

It’s weird. They’re awkward. Or—Matt’s awkward, because he doesn’t really know what to do with any part of himself when Charlie’s close to him. Charlie’s fine, and wants to hang out, but Matt just can’t get over his own awkwardness when faced with Charlie’s everything. Matt holds himself too stiff and too wound up, and steals too many looks at Charlie from the corners of his eyes. He can’t talk normally, he can’t do anything normally, because his entire head is just filled with Charlie and he doesn’t know how to act when he’s fixating on the way he feels like he’s falling into Charlie’s orbit even when he’s trying to avoid him. Because Matt is avoiding him as much as he can, hoping that the weirdness will fade soon and Charlie will stop shooting the ‘dude what the hell’ glances he has been.

The choice gets taken out of his hands a few practices in, where Charlie bumps their shoulders together on the bench, and something in Matt’s head feels like it just falls the last bit open, and suddenly Charlie’s everywhere even more than he already was except Matt can’t let him, throws up walls as fast as he can so he doesn’t get anything except the impression of Charlie, and so Matt doesn’t leak the contents of his entire brain to Charlie. Matt focuses on the ice and not on his head and the fact that Charlie is his—that he’s—. It feels so unbelievable that he can’t even admit to it in his own head.

Matt’s successfully avoided Charlie in the locker room after practice, preparing to actually sort through his goddamn head. He doesn’t even know if Charlie knows

“Matt, hey,” someone calls, and as Matt turns around, he gets crowded against the wall by a body that he just knows is Charlie’s, doesn’t know if he knows it because of the bond or because he just knows Charlie that well. Charlie isn’t focusing on Matt, reaching out for a door handle behind Matt and gently pushing Matt into the room with a tight grip on Matt’s arm.

“It just snapped for you, didn’t it?” Charlie says, and he sounds somewhere between annoyed and upset and something that might be hurt, except he doesn’t really have a reason to be hurt, because—oh.

Matt makes a noise once he actually processes what Charlie’s said. “It already snapped for you?” he asks, his voice shaking and too small. He feels too small; Charlie’s giant hand wrapped around Matt’s arm still, pressing hard enough that Matt can feel each individual finger, and Charlie’s body just a little too into Matt’s personal space, and Matt doesn’t mind it as much as he should.

“It snapped for me days ago, dude,” Charlie says, and he sounds frustrated. He even feels frustrated, if Matt concentrates in the spot of his brain that used to be nebulous bond things, all crackly with Charlie’s irritation. “I don’t—it just snapped for you, maybe, but you’ve been shutting me out ever since it snapped for me, but when it snapped for you, you just—you shut me out even more thoroughly than I thought you could. And even more than you were already.”

“Sorry,” Matt says, even though it’s pretty much nothing in the face of Charlie’s frustration. He’s still struggling with his words and what to say when Charlie starts talking again.

“I don’t—we’ve been doing this for months, but you’ve been avoiding me the entire time now that we’re in the same place, and that was, like, not cool, but it was whatever. But then you shut me out of the bond even after you knew it was me,” Charlie says, and he sounds so fed up that Matt is starting to feel pretty bad about everything, even though he doesn’t really know what he’d do differently, so they didn’t end up in this situation. “Like, if you changed your mind and didn’t want this, you just had to tell me.”

“No!” Matt says, horrified that Charlie could even think that, although, considering Matt’s behaviour, he can see how Charlie reached that conclusion. Matt doesn’t know how to explain his confusion from the last while, about what exactly their thing was. Calling it a thing just left things all vague and confusing, and honestly, the two of them should have cleared it up way before, but Matt just didn’t want to deal with the possibility of Charlie rejecting him. “I just didn’t know what we were doing, and then things were—”

“I thought we were dating,” Charlie blurts out, interrupting Matt. He looks nervous and his face is flushed. “I thought we were dating and then when the soulbond came in, I thought, y’know.”

Matt just stares at him for a long moment. “What.” It’s not a question.

“I mean, we didn’t talk about it, but you said you were into me, and it was just you since then, and then the bond came in. So yeah, dating. _Soulmates_ ,” Charlie sounds kinda outraged, and well. Matt doesn’t blame him. Matt doesn’t blame him, like, at all, because this is exactly what he wanted way back when that phone call happened, and it’s kinda his own fault that things have been the way they’ve been, fuck, this is so ridiculous.

“Um. So this is definitely my fault,” Matt says. “I just—I thought we were just sexting or whatever. But I hoped, that it would be you when it settled.” It feels weird to be saying all of this out loud, and to Charlie. He won’t be able to take it back and it makes him feel vulnerable.

“I—you did?” Charlie asks, and he still sounds way too unsure for Matt’s liking.

Matt exhales, and lets the walls inside his head come down, pushes all of his everything about Charlie at Charlie, all of his affection and uncertainty and just—all of it.

“Oh,” Charlie says, looking kinda stunned. “I didn’t…” He trails off, cups Matt’s face, and Charlie’s feelings about Matt in Matt’s head feel secondary to seeing the expression on Charlie’s face, which is fully awestruck now, and laced with happiness. Matt wants to kiss him, doesn’t know if it’s him or Charlie who makes the first move, the two of them kissing messily at first, taking time to learn each other and align, and after that it’s so good it’s dizzying, Charlie pressing Matt into whatever it is behind him, his hands dropping to grip Matt’s hips so tight that Matt wouldn’t be surprised to find bruises there the next day. The thought kinda delights him, actually, and he makes a noise, wrapping his hands around Charlie’s biceps to try to pull him closer, even though they’re already pressed up against each other. This is going to be good, he can already feel it, and Charlie's thoughts echo his own even as he tries to pull Matt closer.


End file.
